


Wasted Potential: A Friendship

by ThoughtfulFangirl



Category: 90s Anime Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 11:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11850738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulFangirl/pseuds/ThoughtfulFangirl
Summary: Takes place at the end/beginning of Episodes 110 and 111. Features moments from episodes 100 and 109.Minako dwells on her discovery of Haruka’s secret life as Sailor Uranus as she heads off to confront her about Usagi’s stolen locket. Upon finding her however, Haruka lays dying.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for someone's birthday. The prompt was "Talismans."

"Everyone! I think Haruka and Michiru are about to do something really dangerous! Haruka, she just took my broach! Said she didn't want my help!" 

"What?!" Mina's cry was met with a chorus of the others. 

"I'm going after them. Please come help!" 

"Usagi!" She said firmly and more calmly than she felt. "Do not go after them." 

"You can't even transform!" Rei's voice hissed through the communicator. "Don't be stupid!" 

"Wait for us Usagi." Mina ignored Rei's urgency, kept her voice calm, firm, hoping against hope Usagi would listen to her. "We'll get there as soon as—"

"There's no time!" Usagi insisted, and then she terminated the the communication. Mina scowled down at her wrist. 

"Ami, track where Usagi's going and send us the coordinates. Girls, it's time to transform." 

 

They raced after a little pink, beeping dot on Sailor Mercury's super computer. They had a ways to go, and this meant Mina had time to seethe. She had _thought_ she had made a friend in Haruka before she'd found out just exactly _who_ she was, and she'd spent too much time already going over in her head what she may have revealed to the woman, how she may have exposed herself and her team to her. 

_"Michiru, Haruka, What do you think a pure heart is?" She asked it so sincerely. They seemed so pure, at the time. Haruka was so fun and supportive, and she was clearly great to Michiru. Surely they had some thoughts on the matter..._

_"Taking the time to help others?" Haruka had offered so awkwardly, almost suspicious._ Perhaps she had been. 

"Tch." Mina hissed. How at odd was that statement, looking back. They were senshi who refused to work with their princess, who had goals different—and against—their own and wouldn't explain why. It had been no help to anyone. They had stood by and watched the lives drain from so many people, herself included, never explaining why. 

But it stood to reason that, searching for pure souls themselves, they had some ideas on what that might mean, even if they didn't have such traits themselves. 

What a fool she must have seemed to them. Mina ground her teeth. She, wanting to be seen as pure and good, them paying witness to this. Were they just as surprised when she had indeed been targeted? 

'Don't think of that. That is off-mission and irrelevant!' She chided herself as she ran. Haruka took Usagi's broach, leaving her helpless and taking possession of the silver crystal. This is what she should be angry about. And she was! She had been wary of them from the start. That cold, distant part of herself that recalled the Silver Millennium knew of these senshi, knew of their power and their mission. This wasn't it. They didn't belong here. Mina had railed against Sailor Venus at first when this thought came. They hadn't deserved a life of isolation. Now she wondered. 

Now she feared what they knew and remembered. They had worked alone; it had been under the orders of their queen. Now they disregarded their princess completely. Were they, in all actuality, truly their enemies in every sense? They had different goals, but she hadn't truly thought they were a threat to them, but this... Sailor Uranus's actions against Usagi today put her at great risk, and she had to question if it was truly to keep Usagi from following or if they just wanted to lay hands on the crystal. Either way, the result was the same; they had to protect Usagi now at her most vulnerable _and_ get the crystal back. Mina found herself hoping fiercely that they would pay for it in whatever battle they strode into this day, that they would see they were just as useless without her team and that Haruka would regret... 

"I think this is it!" Ami said, coming to a slow outside a grand cathedral, her eyes focused on the screen of her computer. "Usagi is inside there." 

Sailor Venus gave a sharp nod. "Alright, let's be careful. We don't know—" A sound, a shift in the air, light flashing drew her attention back to the door. 

"Usagi!" Rei screamed, and she twisted away from Sailor Venus's gaze and made for the door, the rest of them racing alongside her to see what had happened. 

They were right inside the entry, but the sight of it made them stop. Usagi was kneeled on the floor, her back to them, her hands resting on the marbled floor in front of Haruka, who lay still on the ground. Above her glittered the aura of her heart crystal. The crystal iteslf shimmered for a moment, and then something seemed to form from it's center, pushing out, twisting Haruka's heart crystal into something else, something _other_. 

Sailor Venus's eyes bore into the object. A sword with a silver curved blade, engraved in gemstones. A gleaming gold hilt topped the blade. It was truly magnificent. For a moment, Sailor Venus saw her own sidearm in its place, but it was just a memory. Her fingers curled in, almost remembering the feel of the ancient blade in her hands, a strange sensation in flesh that never felt its heft. Its weight would have been much different than this sword's, having a longer, straighter blade. It would have been heavier, but she imagined, perhaps less powerful. Hers had not traveled with her into this lifetime. 

The senshi moved forward to approach a distraught Usagi, who was leaning over Haruka's dying body. Mina wondered, almost perversely, if she was to wield this sword. She felt simultaneously intrigued and repulsed at the idea. If she was to live this life, she wished she had her blade back, but she didn't want to wield Haru-Sailor Uranus's heart crystal. 

_"Don't you wonder how things would be if you were an ordinary high school girl? Don't you feel like you're missing out on ordinary happiness?" Mina had asked Haruka. It had never occurred to her to ask the other girls. They had taken to their lives as senshi better than she had foreseen when she first met them. They had found family with each other and never seemed to question if it wouldn't be better to have never been a senshi at all. But Haruka wasn't how society expected her to be, and she carried a weight with her because of it. Somehow, that weight didn't seem to drown her though, sometimes didn't even seem to touch her. Haruka's strangeness didn't truly seem to compare to the oddity of Minako's of course—magical destiny and all... Had some part of her known? She waited for Haruka's answer._

_"Are you sacrificing an ordinary happiness?" Haruka had asked, eyes so intent on her. How did Haruka simultaneously seem so laid back and yet reverent about Mina's question? Because she had genuinely wanted to take it seriously but maybe didn't know how—Mina seemed ordinary enough on the surface. She had sensed this dichotomy at the time and realized there was only one safe answer: no._

_Haruka had continued anyway. "I don't really know what 'ordinary happiness' is, but I don't think of myself as 'out of the ordinary.' I am who I am. This is the only way I know how to live. I have something far more important than ordinary happiness."_

How was Sailor Venus to reconcile this sincerity with the aloofness and condescension of Sailor Uranus? Haruka had been speaking to an experience far more similar to Mina's than either had realized at the time, had given an answer that managed to give her some solace—if only because she didn't insist there was nothing to be unhappy about—and all the time, had been preparing to take lives, making her an enemy. 

Usagi and Sailor Uranus were speaking. Sailor Venus should have been paying attention. "Protect the talismans, and find the remaining one." She was finally passing on her mission. Mina's fingers clenched into a fist. Only as she lay dying does she reveal what is needed to save the world. It was entirely selfish, that she would leave now and expect them to carry on a mission she never took the time to explain to them. 

Sailor Uranus's words were soft and failing, her eyes fixated on Usagi which made Mina look away, at Michiru's lifeless body and the ornate mirror hanging over her like a loving gift placed over a grave. "Bring the Holy Grail to the legendary Messiah." Haruka finished, snapping Sailor Venus's attention back. 

"Legendary Messiah?" And the image passed over her again, Sailor Venus leading the senshi into battle with her sword out and ready to point the way. _Was_ she to carry that blade now? 

"When the Messiah holds the holy grail, the world will be saved." The last was nearly a whisper, and Mina finally tore her eyes away from the sword, the talismans, Sailor Neptune, and lay on Haruka, whose eyes were closing, the last of her energy draining away. And oddly, as Usagi cried out in anguish—as had always been her way, to wear her emotions on her sleeve—Mina felt as though the cry came from herself. 

_"I have something far more important than ordinary happiness."_

Guilt washed over her, remembering her hope that Uranus and Neptune would regret their actions today. Well now they weren't even around to regret, and Mina was left with the realization that she had held out hope they could make allies out of these senshi. 

Their mission had consumed their ordinary happiness, and now they wouldn't even be around to complete it. Wouldn't have been even if they had shared their path with Mina earlier. 

Even as Rei checked and found Haruka's pulse and Mako wondered aloud how they could undo what had happened, Sailor Venus knew that it was only a matter of time before their pulses would fade to nothing. They had to. The talismans were needed. The way Haruka was so ready to die—how she hung on as long as she could because she didn't want to—spoke volumes. 

_"This is the only way I know how to live."  
_

> Minako wished this were true for her.

In the fight to come, they were going to need the power of these talismans. How was Mina going to pull these fractured pieces together? If she reached for the sword now, she would horrify her team. 

She would horrify herself. 

Because, she realized, she hadn't kept out hope to make Uranus and Neptune allies because of their power or because of the fight ahead. She had wanted to make allies of them because, despite everything, she had come to find Haruka a friend. 

 


	2. Wasted Potential: A Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A submission to Doc's birthday contest, the prompt being, "The Ghost of You" for Haruka and Michiru. I struggled to find the right thing to do, then remembered one of my old contest fics, where Minako wondered if Haruka's talisman was meant for her in 110/111. Here is what happens when she decides to do just that and what it means for Michiru and Haruka. I tried to write it in a way that the previous chapter is not necessary to read but rather the context for 110/111 would be. 
> 
> Michiru's POV is a really hard to write, and I tried to avoid it, but alas, it ended up being the majority of this fic. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

_Michiru had never had a particularly strong fear of death. Life was so often drudgery that death, at times, had a sort of appeal. It's not that she thought it would be pleasant — there was no paradise awaiting her._

_This however, didn't seem so bad. She felt a bit chilled, but she was surrounded by what seemed to her the crashing of waves, the sting of a soft, cold wind. It was both dark and somehow cerulean. She couldn't see the waves or feel the spray, but it seemed her spirit was returning to the sea. This was an afterlife she could appreciate._

* * *

 

"How do we return their pure-heart crystals?" Rei asked from her place kneeling at Haruka's side. Mina's gaze left the inert blonde and returned to the talisman in the shape of a sword, the one she had wondered if she was meant to pick up now. Nothing about the talisman looked like the heart crystals they had come to know. It was Usagi's influence on Rei, Mina thought, that gave her the hope it was somehow inside the talisman, rather than transformed into this. 

A sudden intense wave of heat bubbled up between their ranks. The sudden threat of the flames cut through Mina's indecision, and her hand jerked out and grasped the hilt of the curved sword. As her hand breached the corona of light around the artifact, it was as though she felt Haruka there, and a knot caught in her throat as she pulled it to her, warm and almost pulsing in her hand, like a languid heartbeat.

In front of them, something other than the flames flashed between them, and the mirror was gone. Mina turned in the direction the flash had gone, moving into a defensive pose, feeling that part of her which was Venus fill with pleasure at the familiar feel of a sword in her hand.

* * *

 

_A warmth and a tuscan cast fell over her in that dark, chill place. Michiru turned and smiled to see Haruka. The woman seemed to move closer to Michiru in a sort of bewilderment, reaching for a touchstone in this strange place._

_"Is this death?" Haruka's voice came hushed, echoey._

_Michiru reached out to her, and when they came together, the warmth flushed through her. She had hoped she could save Haruka, but she couldn't regret having her by her side. Would Haruka sink below the depths of the sea Michiru would fade into, and become part of the ground her waves lapped against? She could be content with that. "Yes 'Ruka. But at least we're here together."_

_"It was us Michi. It was our hearts all along. You... your heart became a mirror." She laughed suddenly. "Isn't that just fitting? One of the talismans—your talisman, was a mirror."_

_Michiru felt the air shift as the realization came over her. It had a sort of cagey logic. Of course Serenity would send them on a death-knelling mission. To complete their task was to die. But Serenity was no more, and at least she could be together in death with Haruka. She drew closer to the woman. "I almost wish I could have seen your pure heart." She had always known it was pure. She didn't take the moment to consider what this meant of herself._

_Alarm flashed through Haruka. "Yours was beautiful but... I wish I hadn't."_

_Michiru wished she could kiss her, but while she knew it was with Haruka she was speaking, whose presence she was touching, whatever it was they had become and whatever existence they were experiencing, it didn't seem exactly physical._

* * *

 

When Chibiusa showed up with an extinguisher and Eudial realized she'd have to fight them all in order to get Haruka's talisman, she had fled. The senshi had pursued, and she had used another strange weapon against them. Mina found herself absurdly stuck, covered in a hardening slime Eudial had sprayed them with.

At this realization, Eudial had advanced toward them, thinking to pull the talisman from Mina's hand. Mina tried to maneuver he wrist, to get the blade to cut against the hardening slime, but she couldn't get the momentum. She felt panic burble inside her. Eudial _could not_ have Haruka's heart. "Haru..ka" she groaned, feeling both furious and sorrow at the same time. She was still mad at her, but she couldn't let what was left of her fall into their enemy's hands.

Mina felt a warm pulse in her palm where she held the sword. Did part of Haruka remain in the blade. As Eudial approached to try and take it, Mina gave a push of her own power, into the talisman, and felt a growing echo of Haruka. The blade began to shine, to pulse, and Eudial seemed to jerk back and away, as if afraid the blade would be too hot to hold.

The substance around Mina seemed to begin to melt in a growing diameter out from the blade, and slowly, she drew to her feet. Eudial turned and fled again.

Turning to the other senshi, stuck around her still, she cast a circle with the sword, feeling the magic spill into the cursed goo Eudial had stuck them with, and it began to fall away.

Knowing her companions would soon be free, Mina took off after Michiru's talisman. Eudial _could not_ have it.

* * *

 

_As Michiru drifted in that sea of sunshine kissed waters with Haruka, a cloud seemed to drift in front of her sun, dimming that honeyed shine, obscuring Haruka's presence. She could feel her fading. Michiru held tighter, drew closer._

_"Mina?" She heard Haruka say, as she felt her thoughts drift away from her. Haruka looked back. "I think Mina needs my help. I can... feel her, but she's not here."_

_"Love," Michiru claimed, trying to break through Haruka's distraction. She had never called her that before, not dared, besides that touch of her hand to Haruka's hours past, to reveal her feelings. "There is no more you can do for them. Stay with me."_

_"Love? Mich.." Her attention drifted again, and it was as though parts of her were also drifting away, thicker clouds obscuring her light._

_"Haruka!" Michiru closed her eyes and calmed herself. Resignedly, she said, "Go to them. Remember that you're heart is pure and..."_

_"Yes Michiru?"_

_"Know that I have loved you and will be waiting for you here." And she enfolded herself in Haruka's presence, bathing in the remaining light of her._

_Haruka accepted her presence. "I didn't realize it before, but, I think... I love you too. We'll be together again." She said, and Michiru felt a warm touch, as if recieiving a kiss. They held onto each other as Haruka's essence slowly seemed to drain away, a storm cloud passing in front of the sun, blocking it out utterly, until everything was dark as pitch._

_Having been warmed by Haruka's light, the chill from before now felt unbearably frigid. The cerulean from before now seemed a sickly grey. She drew in on herself, alone and bereft, and hoped she faded fast into the waves. She no longer wanted to think._

* * *

 

As Minako pursued Eudial, she called on her Love-Me-Chain with her free hand whipped it out at the fleeing woman. She caught her about the wrist and yanked hard, pulling the woman backward, forcing her to swing around uncontrollably until she fell to the marbled floor of the arching anteroom of the Cathedral.

Mina advanced on her, her words echoing around the chamber, "Return Neptune's talisman." She flourished the blade, finally have a moment to familiarize herself with the balance of it, the way it moved through the air. It was very different from Venus's sword, but she felt she would have no problem wielding it. She still felt as though Haruka was with her, and knowing she would not be there by the time this would be over, to yell at demand answers, made her all the more furious.

Eudial spun herself around on her buttocks and reached behind herself for that sticky goo. Mina leapt at her, reaching her side, angling herself toward the woman's back, and the blade slid through the hose of the device like butter. Eudial cried out and dropped it, her fingers having nearly caught in the cut.

Footsteps hammered in behind where Mina had entered as the others poured in behind. "Venus!" Mercury cried as she came into view. Mina turned to see if anything was wrong. Perhaps it was that she had left them behind without orders or a plan.

Eudia was on her feet, reaching for her Fire Buster. Mina turned. The woman had gotten some distance, and she aimed that weapon at the grouped senshi in the doorway. The blade pulsed in her hand, Uranus's power. Venus pulled on her own, and as the fire burst out, Mina, the talisman she held, and the last vestiges of Haruka's powers stepped in it's path. Together they pushed into the flames, nearing Eudial.

When Mina reached the last few feet, she lunged. Being engulfed in flames, she had not been able to calculate her strike, and she felt it's edge bite into flesh. It was too late to reassess or pull back. She put all she had into the rest of the cut.

Abruptly, the flames died and Mina was faced with Eudial's white, stricken face. Across her abdomen was a large, gaping wound where the blade had cut across her. She slid to her knees and slumped over. 

The silence following silence was deafening, and the blade felt cold in Mina's palm.

* * *

 

A sudden tug pulled on Michiru, and suddenly she felt a gusting wind that caused her skin to prickle. Abruptly, her world was pain. Her chest felt as though it were gaping open for a moment, and then a familiar presence burst, blossomed inside of her. It was the opposite sensation of that which had killed her, as though someone had recorded the moment Eudial struck her with her heart weapon and hit reverse.

Only, as she opened her eyes, she was in a different place than she had died. And before her stood Haruka, whole and waking. Joy leapt within her chest. Haruka got to live after all, and she knew Michiru loved her and Haruka loved her in return.

As Haurka looked around however, something was wrong, and Michiru's blood suddenly felt like ice. Something was _wrong_. Haruka's normally stormy grey eyes looked suddenly made of steal. Her expression was too hard. Creases around her eyes of utter confusion seemed too much for the woman who understood even in death how she had died.

"The Talismans." It was Haruka's voice, but that too was wrong. There was a sort of confusion to the voice, but it was calculating. She was making sense of what was around her. Michiru looked hard at her. What was it that had gone so wrong? Haruka glanced to Michiru, her eyes seeming only to note that she was there—there was nothing personal in that look—and then to Pluto, who stood with them, making a triangle of their figures. She held out before her an orb of red which radiated power like the other floating talismans about them. "The grail is needed?" Haruka asked of her. Pluto gave a nod.

Haruka turned back to the sword, hesitated for a moment, and then reached out and grasped it. Light flared at her touch, and Michiru felt the power surge around and pause at her, waiting, anticipating. Holding its breath for her. Tentatively, she reached out for the mirror which had rested within her. The power that filled her upon that touch, as light fractured resplendently out from the connection, should have exhilarated her. But as the three powers connected, Haruka's had the same alien quality which her eyes, her voice, her mannerisms had.

The combined energies streamed between the three of them, and Michiru felt a pull, and a grail shimmered into place above them, gleaming. 

"Depending on who wields it," Pluto spoke, her voice reverential, "it can lead the world to either destruction or peace. The Holy Grail possesses unlimited power."

"And it's presence amongst us is a harbinger of Saturn's return. Whatever evil brought upon us the necessity of this artifact, we cannot be distracted from protecting this planet from Saturn's wrath." 

A heavy silence fell over them. Michiru could contain her rancor no longer, and her voice broke out icily, "And what has it done to Haruka?" She felt the eyes in the room shift to the tall blonde woman, but her own grey eyes held no recognition for the name. Michiru stilled as she realized, truly had to face the fact in that moment, that she had still been holding out hope. But there was nothing left in this woman of Haruka, not even a recognition for her own name. "Can the grail also bring her back?" 

Uranus, eyes upon her, looked around in confusion. "The grail has ultimate power when wielded correctly, but I'm afraid I don't understand your question." 

"H-Haruka?" Venus's voice broke in, as she stepped over a figure Michiru hadn't noticed earlier. Eudial lay in a halo of blood at Venus's feet. She appeared as though she had been slashed with a long, fine blade, but the general held no blade in her hands. 

"What is wrong with you?"

"She's Uranus." Michiru's voice sounded detached from her. Much too calm. Her insides were a roiling sea, stirred by a savage storm. "There's nothing left of Haruka in her." Michiru whirled on Pluto. "Why have I returned but Haruka has not?!" She demanded.

Pluto placed the orb and its ornamentation on top of a tall staff she held in her left hand. Her movements appeared painfully careful, calculated, as though doing this gave her time to think. "I don't..."

"You have an idea or you wouldn't hesitate." Michiru said, her tone having reached a deadly calm.

"It's my fault." The voice was small, but the room was large with the sort of reverberant quality that carries even the softest of words around it, clear as though you stood beside the speaker. 

"Mina." Rei said, as if to start in on how that could not be possible. Venus ignored her.

"Eudial reached for the talismans, but I got to the sword first. I felt her, Haruka, when I wielded it against Eudial's weapons, against her." Venus looked from her hands, to the dead woman behind her.

"Her energy got used up. You were on the brink of death, Michiru. But Haruka passed before I returned your heart crystals. I don't know how it has happened, but Uranus seems to have returned in her place." Pluto said, her voice soft, but she held Michiru's gaze, and the sympathy in them made Michiru feel near to bursting with rage, for rage, at the moment, was much safer than sorrow.

"I see." Uranus finally spoke. "I was reincarnated. Strange that I had not been, at least fully, awakened. I suppose it was fate, for now we are not both gone. I can carry on the mission in her place."

"You are not real!" Michiru suddenly hissed at her, hating her for having Haruka's face and voice. "You are a shell! A ghost! I will not work with her." Michiru turned on her heel, gripping her mirror in her fist so hard, she felt the skin stretched taught about her knuckles might rip.

"Neptune, you can't—" Venus started, her voice almost breaking.

Michiru whirled around to aim her fury at Venus, who had no room to speak. She remembered Haruka calling out her name. Haruka hadn't needed to lend her energy to this woman, but she had, and now she was dead.

"You killed her! You have no right to demand my loyalty." For she knew it was the duty of Venus to file them into rank.

"Neptune..." Michiru went slack. That was the closest Uranus had sounded yet to her Haruka, but it wasn't her. Would never be her. "We fought side by side for ages in Serenity's service. Would you abandon me now? I cannot know your loss, and I am sorry for it, but in time my friend, I hope—"

"No." Michiru's voice was thin but firm, and the acoustics carried it to each ear to hear. "I am done."

"Maybe." Usagi's voice, high and wavering, floated through over the tension, coating it more than breaking it. Michiru felt her move behind her. "Maybe this grail could..." Michiru felt the moment Usagi put her hands on the grail. It was a short moment, when the grail was still connected to the three of them, and then the connection broke. 

Fingernails biting into flesh, Michiru turned to see the blaze as the grail transformed Sailor Moon into something more. She willed herself against hope, knowing she might not survive a failure.

The blaze expanded out toward Uranus, who drew back, eyes showing white as she tried to cry out her disapprobation. No words escaped her before she was enveloped. 

"Sailor Moon—" Pluto tried to cut in, but the blaze felt impenetrable even to sound. Did she see Uranus's panic? Michiru hated her for caring.

They held their breath while Sailor Moon and Sailor Uranus stood in an opaque sphere of brilliant power. When the light faded, Usagi collapsed into Tuxedo Masks arms, for he had lunged to catch her. Michiru didn't spare a glance for her though, watching Uranus. 

The woman was shaking, and gripping her biceps. "I lived and I died, and when I come to live again, you wish to cast me out." She stepped up to Usagi, hand dropping to her sides in fists, and all the other senshi besides Michiru surged forward to keep them apart as though she might be a threat. "If you had simply failed, I would consider my oath broken on your part, but as you saw that to do what you wished would be to destroy me and withdrew, you have my oath. But know that it will take more, princess, to earn back my trust." With that, Uranus stepped to Pluto's side and said coldly, "We have a mission to see to." 

Michiru cast her transformation wand and the mirror down upon the marble floor. Her transformation unraveled around her as she said, "I have found the talismans and brought the princess the grail. I have completed my task. Bother me no longer."

Rei jerked toward her, "Neptune if we fail, then the world falls! I have seen it. We need all of our power to defeat what's coming."

"My power to help you died with Haruka, who your precious Sailor Moon decided to let die for the sake of one who already had their life. Perhaps the world deserves to crumble."

Michiru turned then and left, leaving behind her forever the living ghost of the only person she'd come to love.


End file.
